Cost of a 30-second Super Bowl ad

Between 2005 and 2022, babies named Maverick and the cost of a 30-second Super Bowl ad both increased steadily, correlating at 0.9653 across eighteen years. Both represent the American impulse toward escalation: the names get bolder, the ads get pricier, and nobody involved shows any interest in restraint. One imagines a future in which the name Maverick costs $7 million to register, just like the ad. The data does not predict this outcome, but the trend lines are suggestive. America names its children the way it prices its advertising: with confidence that exceeds all available evidence.

The name Maverick rose from relative obscurity to the top 40 by 2022, driven by the cultural embrace of unconventional names and boosted by Top Gun: Maverick. Super Bowl ad costs rose from roughly $2.4 million in 2005 to $7 million by 2023, reflecting the game's unique status as mass-audience live television in a fragmented media landscape. Both are inflation-plus growth curves across 18 years—one cultural, one commercial—with no shared mechanism.

A baby name trend and an advertising price trend will correlate across any shared growth window. Both measure escalation in their respective domains, and the mathematics of escalation looks the same whether you're naming a child or pricing a commercial.